Celebrating Women of African Heritage Business Issue

Business Issue 2015
Celebrating Women of African Heritage
AFROELLE
www.afroellemagazine.com
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Coursaris
On Educating Girls in Congo
INTERVIEW BY PATRICIA MISWA
AFROELLE Cover Story
I
nternational model and founder of Malaika, Noella Coursaris was born
in Lubumbashi, DRC. The loss of her father at age 5, along with her
mother’s lack of resources, led to her being sent to Switzerland to live
with relatives. After achieving a degree in business management, she
moved to London and began a career in modeling, where her first
campaign was for Agent Provocateur. Her success brought her to New York
where she has been featured in a myriad of publications, including Vanity
Fair, Essence and GQ. Alongside her active modeling career, the wife and
mother of two founded Malaika, a non-profit that believes in empowering
Congolese communities.
Fiercely proud of her heritage, Noella’s determination to help improve the
lives of Africa’s youth has made her an international advocate for them. She
has been featured on BloombergTV, three different CNN programs and the
BBC’s Focus Africa. She has addressed UNICEF and the Kinshasa Parliament
and gave a TEDx talk in Paris. Noella has participated in many international
panels and was invited to speak about the future of Africa alongside
President Clinton at the Clinton Global Initiative’s Opening and Closing
Plenaries in Morocco. In 2014, Noella was named one of the 100 most
influential Africans by New African magazine.
What was the driving force
behind starting Malaika?
Growing up in Switzerland I was
fortunate to receive a good
education so, when I returned to the
DRC as an adult I was shocked to
learn of the education crisis there.
Seven million children do not attend
school and there is a 46% literacy rate
for women. These were the
motivating factors behind creating
Malaika, in order to have a positive
impact on such an important issue.
What is Malaika’s mission?
Malaika’s mission is to empower
Congolese girls and their
communities through education
and health initiatives. We view our
role as providing the Congolese
people with tools and
opportunities that they can then
use to bring about positive results
for themselves. Our work takes
three distinct paths.
The Malaika School is a free,
accredited school that is providing
a quality education to 231 girls. We
provide classes in French, English,
math, science, health and civic
education which are given
daily. The goal is to build the
leadership capacity of each student
so that she gives back to her
community and has a positive, long
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Educating girls lifts entire families out of
poverty and creates confident, empowered
young women.
The education crisis in Congo
disproportionately affects women
and girls. If families can afford to
We impact the surrounding Kalebuka send a few of their children to
village through our Community
school then they choose the boys
Center, built in partnership with FIFA, and the girls are left to do domestic
which provides education, health and work. In the village of Kalebuka,
sports programming to adults and
where we work, the literacy rate for
children.
girls is just 8%. Providing girls with
an education helps break the cycle
We also provide essential
of poverty.
infrastructure development by
building five wells that supply over
Educated women are less likely to
10,000 people with clean drinking
marry early or to die in childbirth
water. This has directly reduced the
and they are less vulnerable to
number of water-related illnesses like diseases like HIV/AIDS. They also
cholera and diarrhoea.
increase their income by 25% and
-term impact on the future of the
DRC.
Why is empowering girls
through education important
to you?
reinvest 90% of it into their families
and communities. Educating girls
lifts entire families out of poverty
and creates confident, empowered
young women.
Do you have plans to
expand your
operations beyond
Kalebuka?
Not at the moment.
Malaika’s work began on
a small scale. The Malaika
School opened with
just a few classrooms
and enrolled 104
students. Every year,
as we raise funds, we
build more rooms,
enroll more girls, and
expand our programs.
This is a purposeful
strategy as we want
to make sure that our
work will be
sustainable.
Our focus is on
providing high quality
programs that have a
direct impact on the
community. Instead
of building many
schools around the
world, we prefer to create the best
school possible, one where we would
be proud to send our children.
What challenges did encounter
while setting up Malaika in
Congo, what are your current
challenges?
The biggest challenge while setting
up Malaika was dealing with the
bureaucracy as there can be many
delays. Current challenges include
making sure we have as highly
skilled staff possible. The education
we provide through the school can
only be as good as the staff that
teach within it, so we place a high
priority in training our staff. We
regularly run workshops on
innovative teaching methods,
leadership skills, and many other
topics.
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Malaika School is a free
accredited school how do you
select the students enrolled?
Center come about and what
role does it play in supporting
Malaika’s mission?
We have a few criteria to narrow the
eligibility pool. We only enroll girls;
they must be five years old as we
want them to start in Kindergarten
and go through their entire
schooling with us; they must live no
We were chosen as the 19th host
center for FIFA’s 20 Centers for 2010
Football for Hope project.
The official campaign was initiated as
a result of the 2010 World Cup in
South Africa
and its goal
was to create
20 centers
across Africa
to serve
disadvantaged
communities
while
promoting
public health,
education and
football.
further than 3km away from the
School; and we only take one girl
per family, although we have made
an exception in the case of twins.
The remaining eligible girls are then
entered into a random lottery
system where we select 30 new
students.
How did your partnership
with FIFA to build the
Kalebuka Football for Hope
Together with
its partner
Street Football
World, who support a worldwide
network of organizations that use
football as an empowerment tool,
FIFA has assisted us to expand our
mission of creating opportunities
towards social development for all
youth and young adults.
The Kalebuka Football for Hope
Center opened in 2013 and offers
education, health, entrepreneurship
and sport programs to youth and
adults in the village.
How can people get involved
in empowering girls and
women especially in the
grassroots in Congo?
We believe that education is the
catalyst for change and an educated
populace leads to a robust society.
So the best way to empower girls
and women is to make sure they are
receiving a quality education. There
needs to be a cultural shift that
recognizes the value of educating
girls and places a premium upon it.
People can reach out to local
schools, including the Malaika
School, and help out in any way
they can, such as through
donations, contributing supplies, or
lending their time and expertise.
Women need to have access into
every sector of society – business,
culture, technology, etc.
Where do you hope to see
Malaika in the next 5 years?
We would like to steadily increase
our programs – enroll more
students at the school and the
community center, and keep
building wells and other WASH
projects. We want to make sure
these programs are sustainable and
embraced by the community.
To learn more about Noella and
Malaika visit
www.noellacoursaris.com
www.malaika.org
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